Leaving Gili Air

The last days, sad to leave, but happy to be heading home, and saying goodbyes amid promises to be back next year.

Littletree did her daily Bahasa Indonesia work over breakfast…

And we got to meet the freshly born twins, Nadiya and Nadira – the newest additions to the family we stay with on Gili Air (pictured being held by their grandmother and great grandmother.)

Littletree spent our last morning playing with Naiela, the little three-year-old girl who lives next door to us; Naiela absolutely adores Littletree, and taught her a bunch of nursery songs in Indonesian.

As a parting gift, Littletree decided to give her soccer ball to Naiela, seeing as proper soccer balls are at such a premium on Gili Air. A very valuable gift indeed!

Naiela was so happy, and Littletree too. Until finally, it was time for us to get on the boat back to Bali. The whole family came out to hug us goodbye, we shall miss them so much!

Last supper

To celebrate our time on Gili Air and say goodbye to all the families leaving, we had a big dinner at the Organic restaurant on the beach – even though about half the families had already left, we still had to book a table for 19!

It was an awesome night

And I got a surprise… everyone chipped in to buy me a dress; the most gorgeous dress ever!

It was totally unexpected to get a properly wrapped present, and to feel the gratitude of all the families who came for the Unschooling Adventure. Of course, the dress is one I’d seen in a shop already, and I’d said that I thought it to be stunning, but they didn’t have it in green; only maroon, dark blue or grey.

But it turned out that the shopkeeper, a lovely woman named Annti, heard that I am a midwife, and she needed some advice about her newborn daughter, so I went to her place to help her out. Then somehow a bunch of the other unschooling mums conspired with Annti to have me a dress made specially in green. It’s the most stunning shade of turquoise, and I love it.

And it was great to spend some time with my friends

We’re so sad to be leaving Gili Air, but the buzz is already building for the 2014 Indonesian Unschool Advennture.

The Life of Littletree

Littletree started her own blog, called The Life of Littletree

It seems that she plans to write about all manner of things; her adventures, science, kittens, and ALL the things!

You can check it out here: http://thelifeoflittletree.blogspot.com/

Learning all the time

The kids are learning so much here; Littletree has her own budget to work out, which means doing her own haggling and calculating foreign exchange rates, as well as budgeting for her meals, bicycle rental and expenses.

Each day, Littletree gets a budget of 100,000 Rupiah, which is about $10. Her room at the homestay and breakfast are provided, but other than that, she has to budget all of her other expenses, including meals, drinks, snacks, bicycle rental, scuba lessons, tours, snorkelling trips, excursions, souvenirs, trinkets, coconuts…

The life lesson in budgeting and calculating money has been invaluable; she’s not only learning very well her 10,000 times tables, she learned very early on that if she splurges all her money on buying pearls from the hawkers on the beach, then she wont have enough left over to rent her bike the next day – or buy dinner! She’s also learned that she can eat a good meal of local food at local Warungs for only a dollar, and save up for when she wants something special, like a glass-bottom boat tour on the reef.

The kids are learning so much; not just arithmetic and accounting!

They’re climbing trees, and snorkelling and scuba diving; learning about the reef and marine life. Littletree even attended a lecture about conservation on the reef and joined in with a local clean-up project to collect rubbish from the beach and reef.

Learning to speak Bahasa Indonesia, and practising with the locals, making friends with local children and learning about their culture and customs, as well as all the social interactions… I couldn’t possibly imagine a richer learning experience.

And despite all the exciting world out there, I can still hardly keep Littletree’s nose out of her book!

And the girls are all keeping journals and spending a lot of time writing and illustrating their adventures on the island – somehow rather a lot of the daily budget seems to get spent on stationery.

Scuba for the planet

While Littletree has been having an awesome time snorkelling on the reef almost every day, the kids have also been drawn to go scuba diving. At first, I thought Littletree was too… well… little. But it turns out the PADI dive centre offers “fun dive” courses for children starting at ten years old, so I said she could do the training session in the pool, and see how she goes.

Several of the kids here for the home school adventure did the course together

Watched the training video and listened to all the instructions from the dive master

Got kitted up with wetsuits and masks – they even had a small sized tank and scuba equipment to fit Littletree

Then they went through the training, learning how to use the apparatus, respirators, equalise ear pressure, underwater sign language, and so on.

And finally, practiced diving!

By the end, Littletree was quite proficient, and given the go-ahead from the dive master to join the group out on the reef… but finally, she decided instead to go to a lecture about the delicate ecology of the reef. She then joined in with a clean-up effort organised by the dive school to collect rubbish from the beach and reef, and protect the dune areas where turtles are laying their eggs.

Littletree came home very excited, happy to have done her bit for the day as a “wildlife warrior”.

Another Solar Return

It was my 34th birthday on Friday! I had a lovely day; spent some quiet time with Littletree, enjoyed my delicious Indonesian breakfast, and then went to lie on the beach and watch the storms rolling over Lombok in the distance while sipping iced drinks.

One of the best things about Gili Air is that while the volcano on Lombok draws in lots of clouds and storms – we can often hear the thunder and see the lightning from here, but right where we are, it’s sunny and gorgeous, and we get the cool breezes pushed out by the storms. Makes for very pretty sunsets too!

In the afternoon I sat with my friends and had birthday cake – it was a delicious rich chocolate brownie with ice cream and whipped cream. Yum! and not at all like the “cake” I had last year.

Then we all ambled over to a beachside bar for dinner and cocktails, and lots of laughs…

And, of course, I was treated to a gorgeous birthday sunset

Feasting part two

Selamat Makan!

So, since I didn’t manage to make all the food-related drool-worthiness fit into one post, here’s a snapshot of our standard dinner: the fish barbecue!

We start by choosing a fish (or prawns, crab, lobster…) and tell them how we want it grilled (rare, medium or well-done).

We can choose if we want the fish served with rice, chips or baked potato, with salad and veggies.

It comes, perfectly done, with dipping bowls of garlic and sambal (chilli paste). So delicious!

Apparently, this is terribly dangerous, because I inevitably overeat.

Then, there’s the treats – the organic restaurant on the beach serves a criminally-delectable warm chocolate brownie with ice cream.

Oh, it’s a hard life! And of course, there’s all the local warungs serving fried rice and curries. Yum!

Feasting – Selamat Makan

One of the best parts of being in Indonesia is the food.

Every morning we sit with the family at our homestay and have a traditional breakfast (well, Littletree usually gets a banana pancake, but I have the Indonesian food)!

It starts out with a really good, locally grown coffee from Lombok, and a carefully-folded paper cone (traditionally, the food is wrapped up in a banana leaf, sadly, those are a thing of the past in most places, as waxed paper has taken over).

We unfurl the paper to reveal a surprise…

Rice with a few different things; spicy fish or chicken curry, sauteed vegetables, peanut sauce, fried tempeh or tofu, shredded coconut, sambal… all manner of local dishes, every day something else.

And every day, delicious!

Eaten with three fingers on the right hand, of course, though using a spoon and fork is also acceptable.

For dinners we often get a fish barbecue, but since the internet here is shaky at best, I’ll have to save that for another post.